Google Voice may have its own mobile webapp now, but it doesn't provide notifications on your phone when you get new SMS messages. Free web service GVMax solves this problem by putting full SMS support into email and IM on your smartphone.

Google Voice's free SMS feature is reason enough to use the service, but it doesn't always integrate well with your current mobile setup. We've featured ways to turn Google Voice into a desktop-friendly, Growl-integrated Windows and Mac app, which you could, in theory, also use to forward notifications to your iPhone with previously mentioned Prowl—but that still requires your computer to be connected and running 24/7. And, if you have a different smartphone, or want to use Google Voice's SMS through something other than its webapp, you're out of luck. GVMax is an open source web service that allows you to send and receive SMS messages through either email or GTalk, as well as get push notifications of new SMS messages on your iPhone without keeping your computer on at home. (Update: This version of GVMax is not, in fact, open source. Sorry for the misinformation).

GVMax does this by using Google Voice's SMS-to-email forwarding system, and sending those messages on to other protocols. Setting up GVMax is incredibly simple—all you need to do is log in with your Google credentials (which you may or may not be comfortable with) and it will set up all the necessary filters for you. You can then go into your preferences and decide whether you want SMS support in GTalk or email, as well as whether you want notifications pushed to your iPhone. If you're uncomfortable providing GVMax with your Google credentials (you can read their privacy statement here), you can manually set up the filters yourself as well, for which GVMax has a pretty easy tutorial.

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If you choose to get SMS support in GTalk, you will receive SMS messages as IMs in your IM client (both on your computer and smartphone). Replying to the IM sends your reply as an SMS message to your contact. If the sender is in your Google contacts, their alias will already be set and you can add them to your buddy list—although you can also add contacts to your buddy list by adding [their phone number]@mygvmax.appspotchat.com as their handle (e.g. 3135551212@mygvmax.appspotchat.com), so you can initiate SMS messages from GTalk as well.

GVMax also provides email features beyond that which Google Voice provides, most namely that you not only get SMS messages forwarded to you and can reply to them via email, but you can also initiate SMS conversations by sending an email to [your contact's number]@mygvmax.appspotmail.com. Note that this email must be sent from an email address somehow associated with Google Voice, either a forwarding email or the Google account tied to it.

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Lastly, if you are on an iPhone, you can get push notifications of SMS messages using Prowl—this is particularly useful if you don't use the above features, or if you use an IM client that doesn't stay logged in, as is common on the iPhone. The difference between the normal Prowl set-up and GVMax, though, is that GVMax doesn't require the Growl middleman, meaning your home computer doesn't need to be on and running all the time to give you notifications—instead, any time someone sends an SMS to your Google number, you will get a push notification sent straight to your iPhone. In addition, if you choose to have, say, both Prowl and GTalk set up, GVMax will default to GTalk when you're signed in and resort to Prowl when you're not—so you won't find yourself inundated with duplicate notifications, which is really nice.

There's quite a bit more that GVMax can do, but these are the essentials (which are still far beyond any Google Voice solution we've seen yet). Check out their user manual for more details. Thanks, manderson!